Complications
by LoveLoveLovix
Summary: Naegi discovers Super High School Level Despair, in more ways than one. With Mukuro Ikusaba guiding him, he ends up saving the last remaining hope in the world... at the same time as he destroys it.


_15_

"You can't control it anymore," Mukuro Ikusaba said to her twin sister one day as they sat in Mukuro's room.

The girl with the pink blonde hair was pricking her fingers with pins, leaving them in as she put more in, so when she yanked them all out at once the blood would flow and the pain would overwhelm, a small and slightly messy form of despair. Mukuro wasn't fond of it. The idea of disrespecting your own body enough to injure it... she knew some did it to ease pain, and she could almost understand that, but Junko injured her body to deal with her own little fetish for despair, for pain, however it came. And that was unacceptable. Junko hadn't spent years on a battlefield, she had no idea how serious an injury, even a tiny one, could be. How even though Mukuro wasn't much for prayers and gods, every night she gave a little thank you that she was still whole, just out of habit.

Junko put the final pin into her middle finger and held out her hand for inspection. Mukuro didn't waver from the sight of the impaled hand- she'd seen worse. Junko just smiled a little. "Wouldn't this be an absolutely despair-inducing, fun way to die? Gored to death all over with sharp points? What do you think, Mukuriin? Absolutely despairing, right?"

"Junko, you're indulging yourself too much. You'll be caught."

"Like they care enough to catch us!" Junko cackled, and Mukuro caught the emphasis on the last word. Yes, she was in on it. She didn't see how she could not be in on it. Junko had done so much for her, had helped her find a path in life. And when Mukuro became better than Junko, better at killing and fighting and causing despair, her sister roped her into a scheme that would throw everything that ever hurt the two girls into complete and utter chaos.

Mukuro denied that she liked that idea.

Junko grabbed a handful of the pins stuck in her skin and pulled them out. She gasped in pain, her eyes widening. When she got her breath back, she continued. "Look at what Kamukura-kun did, and they're defending him, protecting him! Mukuriin, we'll be hailed as heroes for what we do!"

"Why does it matter what the school does? It's the people outside we have to think about."

Junko waved a delicate, bloody hand. "Let me take care of that, okay? Thinking's my job."

"I dislike seeing you obsessed with this," Mukuro said, a hint of stubbornness creeping into her voice. "Despair is... fun and all, but you're getting sloppy. If this was a war, we would both be dead by now."

"But it's not, doesn't that just suck? Guess we'll have to settle for watching all our classmates die!" Junko laughed out loud as she pulled the remaining three pins out one... by... one. "Tomorrow, the world will know what Kamakura did, and then the fun will really start! Who do you think will be the first to die, Mukuriin? You always seem to know about death and killing, mmm?"

Chihiro, maybe. Chihiro seemed easy to take out, a little cub that was both far enough from the pack and small enough to not put up much of a fight. That's what the smart ones would go for, or the born killers who had the same instincts that Mukuro did. But human nature was more than instinct- maybe Fukawa would be first (if she, or rather Genocider Syo, wasn't the first to do the killing), or Togami, purely because they were annoying. Oogami could be a choice, take out the threats first. And if they were thinking about that, Mukuro herself would be a top choice. Or rather, she would be if she wasn't masquerading as helpless Fashion Girl Junko...

Mukuro grunted noncommittally. "I don't know."

"Oooh, but you always know. Fine," Junko sighed as she started pushing pins into her other hand.

"You keep changing the subject. Hasn't your fetish become a bit overwhelming?"

"Have you forgotten everything? This is so much more than a fetish! It's my utmost hope, the utter loss of hope! Hmm, if despair is my hope, does that mean hope is my despair? And if everything is one of the two, then everything is both, and everything is despair, and everything is wonderful!" Junko giggled. "Even your annoying, stupid questions are making me despair, Mukuriin! Was that your plan all along?"

The Super High School Level Soldier remained silent.

There was a knock on the door, and before Mukuro could answer, Junko was there, opening it just a crack. "Who is it?" she singsonged.

"En... Enoshima-san? I thought this was Ikusaba-san's room." The voice belonged to Makoto Naegi, the shy and awkward boy who held the title of Super High School Level Good Luck. Another easy one to pick off, especially if you didn't believe in luck. Perhaps even easier than Chihiro.

"Ding ding! You're right! I'm just visiting! But what does a boy want with my favorite sister? Are you going to do nasty things with her? You seem too innocent for that, Naegi-kun, doesn't he, Mukuriin?"

"What do you need, Naegi-san?" Mukuro said, ignoring her sister.

"I... I was wondering if I could talk to you. In private."

"Ooh, how sweet! I bet it's a love confession!" Junko trilled. Then, she frowned, as though just thinking about something. "Hey, why aren't you confessing to me? I'm the cute and popular little sister, not frumpy Mukuro!"

Mukuro tried to ignore Junko. Naegi said, "I'm not confessing to her! I just have a question about... about... about war."

"Then come on in, Naegi-kun! We'll both hear Mukuro's boring, boring answers, how about that?"

Naegi seemed as if her were about to refuse, but hesitantly entered the large room. Junko perched on a dresser, and Mukuro stiffened on her bed. Her eyes scanned Naegi's body language, saw how tense he was, and she wondered what he really wanted, because nobody actually desired to hear war stories coming from the mouth of a freckled teenage schoolgirl. As she noted that, she watched him shift his weight and lean awkwardly against the door, his head down and his hands clenched in front of him, shielding his more vulnerable areas instinctively- he was expecting trouble, if only subconsciously. Mukuro's curiosity was undeniable.

"Well, ask away, Naegi-kun!" Junko prodded.

"I was hoping to talk to her alone, actually!"

"This is alone," Junko explained with a false patience. "Mukuro tells me everything, right? She tells me everything," she confirmed to herself, not waiting for a proper response from her sister.

"Oh, um... well then..." Naegi looked up, and Mukuro watched a flash of determination appear on his face. "I want you to stop your plans, Ikusaba-san!"

"My plans?"

"Her plans?" Junko echoed.

"I understand how you might think that taking over the school is a good idea! Maybe it can force some action among the staff, you must think! But... but I promise, they'll start working with us soon. They may not seem like they're doing much about the student council's disappearance, but I just know they're trying. So please leave the school alone!"

Junko and Mukuro stared at Naegi. Then, Junko started to laugh, slowly and maniacally. "Naegi! You discovered our plans! How unexpected, how wonderful, how despair-inducing! Oh, this is great! But there's so much you don't know!"

"Oh!" Naegi looked sheepish. "That explains it. I'm probably missing quite a bit, huh? What's your real plan?"

"Upupu, silly Naegi, that is the real plan! Just with a huuuuuuge chunk missing from it! Huh, where do I start? Once upon a time?" Junko paused. "See, isn't this better? Not a silly war story from Mukuro, you get a real fairy tale from me! Once upon a time, there was a Super High School Level Special Boy named Kamukura! Kamukura was very good and very bored, so he found a friend, and her name was Junko Enoshima-chan! The two were very best friends and had a whole lot of fun, and Kamukura would do absolutely anything for Junko-chan. So, she asked him to kill the student council, and he did!"

Mukuro watched the shock come into Naegi's eyes. "What?" he asked.

"Shhh, no interrupting! The school tried to hide the killings up because everyone loved Kamukura very much and nobody wanted to see the school hurt. But Junko-chan knew that was going to happen, and she knew all the gory details. And tomorrow, she'll leak them to the entire world! Everyone will panic because it's so despairing! Junko-chan bet that maybe everyone would start killing and maiming and doing all sorts of fun things themselves! She enlisted her boring big sister Mukuro to come up with a plan to make the despair even worse, and Mukuro used her Super High School Level Boring war skills to come up with some enemy strategies so the girls could plan for them. Super boring!" Junko scoffed. "What they realized was that there would be some people who wanted to preserve hope, to hide it away in a locked box. But it would be Super High School Level Easy to take that locked box and make it their own!"

"So, you're not just taking over the school, you're taking over the world?"

"I said, no interrupting! In the locked box, the girls could be like children with a dollhouse, manipulating and creating new adventures for all the schoolboys and schoolgirls! And since they weren't very nice children, this adventure would be known as the school life of mutual killing! Murders and chaos and despair, oh my! All over the place! And so they hoped to live despairingly ever after. The end!"

"A school life of mutual killing? Despair? Enoshima-san, what's gotten into you?" Naegi's hand twitched towards the doorway, and his eyes scanned the room. Natural- he was searching for an escape route, even though he was pressed against one. Mukuro had to admit that he had some battle instincts, at least. Maybe she was wrong in thinking him the weakest link...

Junko hooted. "Despair! Despair is inside me! And I hear it growing in you too, Naegi-kun! So I'll explain. Everyone is going to die, except for one very special person who gets away with it all and wins! Isn't that fun?"

"Everyone is going to die? Enoshima-san?"

"Well..." Junko paused, as though she had thought of something. "They don't have to. They'll only kill each other if they want to. Isn't that a sad thought? All our hard work for nothing! Oh, but I'll bet they'll want to! After all, we have secrets that we can tell people, and money we can give... oooh so many motivations, so few people! I wish we could play this game with the entire world! It's sad to think we may not even need to use the game, but frumpy Mukuro thinks we will! What an optimist!"

"No way would anyone kill their friends!" Naegi insisted.

"But they'll kill strangers, and that's what they'll be when we gloriously wipe everyone's memories! Isn't it brilliant? Speaking of which, we can't wipe your memories just yet, cause we need the special machines, and the school is still controlled by hope... so I guess we're gonna have to kill you! Sorry!

Junko looked toward Mukuro. "Sis, would you like to do the hono-"

Her voice cut off and she fell forward. Mukuro's favorite dagger stuck out of her ear, and Naegi stood over her, eyes wide and shocked. As the truth registered to Mukuro, she grabbed her practice sword- they wouldn't let her keep guns in her room- and pointed it at him. "You murdered Junko."

He was silent for a moment, staring at the body, and Mukuro was about to place some blows (being a "non-deadly" didn't exempt anything from being absolutely lethal in her hands) when he did speak. "She would kill me... she was going to kill my friends. And I killed her." He looked at Mukuro. "Are you going to kill me?"

Mukuro saw that his eyes were already going dead. Like her eyes. Fish eyes. Even more lifeless than the eyes of her late sister (who Naegi killed less than five minutes ago). Through the dull hatred, barely cutting because _she'd seen it before, seen worse than her sister lying on the floor of her room, bloodied and humbled in deat_h, there was a sharp pain. She hadn't just witnessed a murder, she'd witnessed the birth of a murderer. The birth of a soldier.

"I'm not going to kill you," she said, and she meant it. "I'm going to help you."

* * *

Author's Note: "Complications" is a Dangan Ronpa AU where Naegi and Mukuro are masterminds together. As it is an AU, there will be some slight deviations from canon. And some not so slight ones. Like Junko dying.

Enjoy!


End file.
